A subject overwrought, like the sermon of a Calvin, must verge on the satanic. The poem of “Sister Helen” escapes this only through the pangs of hate being mollified in every verse by the despairing, heart-broken utterance of a refrain addressed to the Virgin Mother, and poured out in the agony of a once-religious, still-believing, soul, wailing with a bitterness which nothing can soften—an eternal hatred of her seducer; nothing short of seeing him in the flames of hell,—willing herself to suffer in them a torment that is only less than her thirst of revenue.

That she should breathe forth all this in a subdued voice of sorrow in the ear of the blessed Mary Mother is almost too touching for perusal; yet the pathos of the situation is even further enhanced by the tender and sad replies she gives to her innocent little brother, from whom she struggles to conceal, almost vainly, the anguish of her heart and its wicked aim. The refrains, for the most part full, are not always equal to the occasion, but might easily have been so rendered by so feeling a writer.

Of course the time must come when the poetry of England is melted down and merged into an anthology, and it is probable that the “Sister Helen,” as being the strongest emotional poem, as yet, in the language, will be among the most lasting works, and escape dissolution for a long time to come; perhaps will survive all change. And here a very remarkable fact thrusts itself before the mind; a representative one, which is that if Rossetti had written not another line besides this poem, his genius would have appeared all the greater: for lesser work is a fatal commentary on greater.

All suffer from this comparison with themselves except Gray, who wrote so little; and even he, after his Elegy, is scarcely saved the self-reproach.

Rossetti, in his writings, did not exercise much imagination, and none of the philosophic kind, by means of which the idea ascends, metaphor above metaphor, as high as the perspective of thought can attain. He did not look to musical sonance in his metre and his choice of words. He did not realize that love, to be acceptable in verse to the higher orders of mind, must be spiritual and chaste, that when carnal we possess it only in common with the beasts of the field. He could not have put on canvas the scenery of his fifth sonnet for exhibition, except in contravention of Lord Campbell’s Act.

From what I have read of his sonnets in his first edition, the vehicle of expression which such composition should formulate was beyond his reach. Above all other forms it demands the philosophic imagination, which scarcely any poet has enjoyed, because its possessors revert to science, as being within their compass, and as subject to higher reward. In Rossetti’s sonnet the expression of the thought rises no higher than its first statement, it has no grand climacteric. His imagination, in fact, was introspective rather than retrospective, and was scarcely prospective at all.

Rossetti was a charming companion: he spoke well and freely on all subjects, literary and artistic, and with much knowledge of contemporary writings. His studio was a favourite resort of men whose names were on title pages, to whom he showed the work he had in progress; and, to his intimate friends, he would sometimes read a poem in a rich and sonorous voice. He had a very just mind. When an author was discussed, whatever might be said against him, he would insist on his merits being remembered. From rivalship and its jealousies he was absolutely free, and his hospitality was without limit. Above all, he was ready at all times to serve a friend, and to exert his influence to that end.

Interesting as Rossetti must always be to a large section of society, I have not considered myself justified in entering at any length on his domestic life, intimately as at one time it was mixed up with my own. Still, without impropriety, I may rest lightly on it, in such manner as to contribute some touches towards the picture of a man whose influence on art will last longer than the canvas on which his ideas are so brilliantly spread. I, therefore, propose to myself the task of narrating my visits to him, in Perthshire, and afterwards at Kelmscott, and at Bognor.

One morning I visited him at Cheyne Walk, when I saw that the restlessness of the past night had pursued him into daytime. Qualifying his request with an expression of great regard, he asked me not to stay. His medical attendants were consulting in another room: I joined them there, and told them that my house at Roehampton was open to Rossetti if they decided that he needed change.

On the same evening, in company with his brother and Mr. Madox Brown, he came to Roehampton, and I remember well his saying, as he sat in my quiet drawing-room, that he was enjoying what he had so long ceased to feel, and that was peace. He sat up late in conversation with his brother on various family matters, but his night was the most troubled one that he had hitherto passed through. The next day he was visited by his mother, and other members of his family, his medical attendant from town preceding them. Miss Rossetti, the gifted author of “The Shadow of Dante,” and her brother, took a walk with me in Richmond Park, while the mother remained with her son.

Mr. Madox Brown joined us later, and the party left the invalid in the evening.

But when the mind is restless, a sick man imagines there is relief to be found in change, and, after a few days, Rossetti returned to town, not to his own house, but to that of Madox Brown, where I saw him again, his restlessness unrelieved.

He had a good friend in Mr. Graham, the member for Glasgow. That gentleman rented two sporting seats in Perthshire, and he placed them at the disposal of Rossetti, who then went to Scotland. But he soon moved from one of these mansions to Stobbs Castle, the other, a place belonging to Lady Willouby de Eresby. While there he felt the want of my assistance, and urgently requested that I would leave without delay. I had a garden-party for the next day from London; this I left to my housekeeper and sons to conduct, and went by the next train.

W. B. Scott and Madox Brown, two faithful friends, were at the castle, ministering to their brother artist. My son George, who had finished his terms at Oxford, and had no present engagement, was there too, and I found all so far satisfactory that Rossetti was contented, enjoying the quiet which was not to be found in his own home.

Stobbs Hall is an ancient inheritance of the Drummonds, a solitude on the heights over-reaching the Tay, with a parapet wall and a Dutch garden, in which is a sundial erected on masonry, which might have been there before the invention of clocks. Below and to the right is a fine reach of the river; on the opposite side is a vast plain of cornfield, planted at intervals, and stretching on northwards to the forest and Grampian hills. On that side, the lords Mansfield enjoy the salmon fisheries; their lands extending eastward to Scone Palace. The two families take it by turns to fish both sides of the river.

Any one wishing to read an account of this scenery in poetic form, can turn to a sonnet called “Rest,” in “New Symbols.”

Scott and Brown soon left the castle, a place with not too much furnished accommodation. Over the mantelpiece, in the one sitting-room, hung a framed set of verses by Drummond, the Scotch poet.

It was not very long before Rossetti’s occupation of the place came to a close. He was fast improving in health; he took long walks, but without any enjoyment of the scenery which was made romantic by water-fall and splashed leaves, ever fresh, the elastic boughs bending under the weight of a torrent. So far recovered, he desired to remain in Perthshire, but still craved for the utmost solitude. In search of such a home I took the train to Perth, visited St. Andrews, returned to Perth, and proceeded to Crieff, where I remained for some days and scoured the environs. At last it occurred to me to call on the leading practitioner, Dr. Gairdner, and was directed by him to a farm-house two or three miles from the town, on the river side. The house had every requirement, and was kept by a lady-farmer, whose manner and person had every agreeable trait. On this, I telegraphed to Rossetti and my son to follow me at once to Crieff, and at the right time I met them at the station there, and we drove to the new home.

It was a pleasant spot, with a walk into Crieff by the river-side, down to a wilderness of waters. There was plenty of mountain scenery in view, with pine forest to the summits, and lake not remote; not to forget the sky-threading mists and the abundance of water from above. Descriptive of this aspect is my sonnet called “Unrest.” Rossetti rapidly improved in health, stumping his way over long areas of path and road, with his thick stick in hand, but holding no intercourse with Nature. It was not long before he summoned his assistant, with the implements of his art, and he was once more happy.

At this time he made a chalk drawing of me, and one of my son.

The first of these was reproduced in a volume of sonnets, called by me, “The New Day.”

The portrait of George was somewhat peculiar; the neck was outstretched, and the expression was heightened by the face being free of hair, which elicited from Latham one of his quaint remarks. He gazed at it for some time with his head like a connoisseur’s on one side; then said, “Yes, a South American slave-driver, who had returned to Portugal to be shaved.”

There are very few male portraits by Rossetti: the only three others are one of Mr. Stillman; one of a youth, in his large picture of Dante’s Dream; and one of Theodore Watts, which is a very good one, but more vivacious than the original, and there is more of the military air than was ever assumed by that peaceful citizen, which makes him look at least a lieutenant-colonel.

As a domestic trait, I would mention that Rossetti was very hearty at all times over his meals. He would wear out three knives and forks to my one; and to me, whose breakfast seldom exceeded one cup of coffee, his plate of bacon, surrounded by eggs that overlapped the rim, was amazing. I may further truly say that he, not being a believer in physiological things, did not regard tea as possessing the attributes of Totality.

While at this farm residence, he read with great eagerness and delight the newly published life of Edmund Kean.

By a careful treatment of him I procured him good nights, effecting this object chiefly by remaining at his bedside and draining my memory of every anecdote I had ever heard, and relating to him every amusing incident that I had encountered during life in my intercourse with the world.

Finding him so well recovered, I left him in the hands of his assistant and of my son, after an absence of many weeks.

Towards the end of the year—it was 1872—Rossetti, with my son, left Scotland and proceeded to Kelmscott Manorhouse, which he tenanted with his friend Mr. Morris. I visited him there, and found him in good health and spirits, after a journey spent, as I heard, with great joviality, the travellers taking a third-class carriage to themselves. He was already settled down to his art in a pleasant studio, loving to talk while he painted; at other times deep in the works of Dumas. In the afternoon he took vigorous walks in the meadows which one after another stretch out in front of the mansion.

The next day we went over the house and grounds. It is an old place, with its seven or rather twelve gables—such a sample of antiquity as you don’t meet with often. The windows are square casements with stone mullions, and the walls very thick. The garden has its yew-tree hedges, cut into fantastic shapes. The river is flooded like a lake, so that old Thames don’t know itself again. It is a most primitive village that surrounds the place—a few scattered free-stone habitations, some ivy-covered. There are no neighbours to interfere with the liberty of the subject.

George was a good boatman, and he often rowed me up the river, which half-way was spanned by an elegant arched bridge, and bounded further on by a weir. The scenery was very satisfying: on the left bank one overlooked a gay meadow, the cattle crowding to the bank to stare us out of sight; on the other side were lofty trees, while in midstream we had often to cut our way through islands of weed. The memory of this and of a later visit to the place was embodied in a poem, which I called “Reminiscence,” in which the scenery lives.

I found opportunities of talking with Rossetti about Mr. Theodore Watts, whose acquaintance I wished him to make more fully, for I had already introduced them to each other. While leading a country life Watts had not only acquired a knowledge of books, but had written poetry, and had thought out many literary problems for himself.

The Manorhouse was adequately furnished, but some exquisite chalk drawings, one especially, of female heads, gave it a charm. I thought that no one ever could paint a woman’s eyes like Rossetti. There was a softness, a delicacy, a life, a soul in them, never seen elsewhere but in living beings, and that how rarely!

Rossetti was unwilling to separate himself from George, and I consented to his retaining him as his secretary, for such a one was very necessary to him at that time.

I saw Mr. Morris at Kelmscott, and afterwards in society; he was inscrutable then, and has since been inscrutability in his career. W. B. Scott was also there, and when I left it was with him. Like his countrymen, he practised an exemplary carefulness in money matters, a habit which makes every Scotchman well off. In the train he counted his money with the dry remark, “One does not save anything by making a visit to a friend!”

A letter from my son George, dated December 19, 1875, written at Aldwich Lodge, Bognor, begins by a rejoicing to hear that I had accepted Rossetti’s invitation to spend Christmas with him at the seaside.

I sometimes look at the bottom of an antique silver snuff-box, a reservoir more than two hundred years old, the lid of elephant’s tooth, and I read—

“T. G. H.,
from
D. G. R.,
1875.”

A memorial to me of better things than an old-fashioned Christmas gathering.

And I use this snuff-reservoir every day; it affords me nasal recreation.

Snuff-taking did not go out with the pigtails, but it is on the wane; it has given way to smoking: and diminished is the number of gifts, such graceful objects for monarchs to present to men like myself—if they did but know me!—of platinum or golden boxes set in diamonds. And would you know the reason of my persistence in taking snuff? It not only wakes up that torpor so prevalent between the nose and the brain, making the wings of an idea uncurl like those of a new-born butterfly, but while others sneeze, and run at the eyes and nose, my schneiderian membrane is impervious to weather, or, to be explicit, I never take cold in my head.

Bath was my tarrying-place when Rossetti’s invitation came to me, and I went to Bognor. The great poet-painter occupied a commodious villa and grounds in a lane, west of the town, and near to the roughest bit of beach on the Sussex coast.

Rossetti had packed his house. Mrs. Rossetti, the mother; Miss Maria and Miss Christina, the sisters; Misses Polidori, who were the aunts; and Watts, who was the friend, were there, together with my sons, Edmund and Henry, for the festive week. The villa had good rooms; upstairs was a gallery with bedchambers on both sides, and ending in a large apartment which became a studio. There Rossetti worked, and liked to be read to while he improved his canvas, till the afternoon, when he took a violent walk over the boulders by the sea, towards Selsey Bay, among the ruined wooden groynes which had become seaweed gardens, hideous of aspect, as if invented and laid out by fish made man.

I walked with Rossetti daily over this penal shore, reflecting on absent pleasure, he unconscious of present pain. He talked but little while his feet crunched the boulders, and took no heed of the aspects of the scene, but seemed to be stamping health out of what was left unused for the six days’ creation.

Mrs. Rossetti was a sweet lady, and Christina, who still lives, a higher poet than her brother, is of the noblest brand. The family, one and all, are almost purely Italian. The father, a poet, was a Neapolitan; the mother was a Tuscan, with some Scotch blood. Rossetti may be regarded, not as English, but as one of those powerful leavens with which the genius of one country sometimes ferments that of another, to give it a new vitality.

Watts, who was now on terms of brotherly intimacy with him, bore him through any passing difficulties that needed only better guidance than his own.

That holiday was made cheerful, less perhaps by the host himself than by his guests. In truth, I saw regretfully that Rossetti was much unstrung; as so many do, even when in health, he got tired of his visitors, and ere long the party dispersed.

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